-6 points

If you’re stupid enough to fall for this they euthanise the foetus.

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6 points

ironic eugenics is genocidal the same way

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11 points

let’s not

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-5 points

Remember kids, the best way to fight eugenics is with eugenics

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-1 points

There’s one born every minute, this is a great way to have them self-select for financial benefit.

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16 points

IQ is so incredibly complicated, and we really don’t know how it works, and what genes allow for the possibility of high IQ. So what are they even screening for? If they’re just looking at broad trends in population IQ compared to genetics, then what they’re actually seeing are environmental factors, which play an immense role in whether or not potential is ever reached.

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4 points

There are likely many hundreds or more of contributing alleles according to one paper I read in uni. How individual differences manifest genetically is stultifyingly complex. We still don’t even have a unifying theory of what intelligence is, or even consciousness - much less “how make smarterer”. It’s before early days, we’re still banging rocks together. Scientists know approximately dick about intelligence.

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4 points

That’s the really crazy thing, innit? We don’t even know what being conscious entails! But we’ve got over one hundred years of studying (“studying”) psychology while just handwaving the underlying mechanisms. We have no idea how all the genes interact, much less how environment directly influences all of that, but we’re still trying to do complex eugenics that’s lightyears past our current understanding.

Maybe we get to Gattaca someday, but it’s not going to be soon.

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2 points

Can’t wait

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7 points

But on the plus side, the people capable of paying for this bullshit are going to have significantly higher chance of proper nutrition for their kids, access to good education, and ability to avoid environmental toxins, so they just have to compare their “handpicked sperm” to the population as a whole and they’ll show great results.

Yeah this is an obvious scam lol.

(It’s not about IQ specifically, but to anyone interested in how many different environment factors play a role in human behavior/outcomes, Behave by Robert Sapolsky is an excellent overview of research in a broad variety of fields. It’s definitely not a light read, but it doesn’t assume too much prior knowledge, and is one of my favorite books on what makes us tick.)

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13 points

GATTICA! GATTICA! GATTICA!

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6 points
*

Scott Alexander pokes his head up out of the astroturf and whispers, “It’s showtime.”

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11 points

GATTACATS would be the most cursed musical possible and every day I give thanks that we live in a world where it doesn’t exist.

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4 points

Just you wait, someone in Hollywood might see your post and get ideas

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11 points

Won’t one crucial difference be that Gattaca’s genetic selection actually worked? This will be a techbro “move fast and break things” con job.

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2 points

Just one step along the way…

It’ll be here soon enough.

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10 points

training your sperm to pass raven’s progressive matrices

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9 points

At least corvids are smart. Better that than some birdbrain’s progressive matrices.

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